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Proposed moratorium on rezonings will hurt too many to justify it

Posted: Friday, August 18, 2000

With a vote on Athens-Clarke County's revised zoning regulations postponed indefinitely, there has been some recent discussion about instituting a moratorium on all zoning actions until the revisions are approved.

Athens-Clarke Commissioner Ken Jordan proposed the moratorium during the commission's agenda-setting meeting Tuesday. During the meeting, Jordan said he thought a moratorium was necessary to prevent inconsistencies in granting zoning requests while the proposed zoning code is being revised.

Under the proposal, no zoning actions -- including new applications for rezoning, conditional uses, variances or staff approvals of any kind -- would be processed until the county's proposed zoning code is adopted or until Jan. 1, 2001, whichever comes first.

The commission will discuss and vote on the moratorium at its Sept. 5 meeting at 7 p.m. in City Hall, 300 College Ave. downtown.

Athens Newspapers cannot support the moratorium as proposed and we urge the commission to either deny it completely or drastically reduce its scope. In its current form, the proposed moratorium has the potential to do significantly more harm than good.

Although the land use plan was adopted last year, the commission has not yet approved the revised zoning regulations that enforce the principles of the land use plan. While the intention of the moratorium may be to delay action on any rezoning request that contradicts the land use plan until the zoning revisions are approved, the vast majority of zoning actions do not fall into this category, but yet will still be a victim of the moratorium.

For instance, a zoning action can include everything from widening an existing parking lot to changing the size or placement of a business's sign. Also, there are a number of issues that don't have to go before elected officials, such as the layout of a new subdivision in an area that is zoned for that type of residential development. As written, the moratorium would put these innocuous items on hold.

Also, there are rezoning requests that have already been applied for and are in the review process now. Despite being applied for before a moratorium was instituted, these requests would be stopped in their tracks under the proposal.

If the commission believes that it must have some breathing room in order to come to a decision on the last few problems in the zoning revisions and it believes a moratorium is the only way to achieve that space, then the scale must be reduced significantly. If the law allows it, the commission should only institute a moratorium on zoning actions that fall under these undecided areas of the zoning revisions.

For instance, the commission has not been able to decide what the maximum density should be in the agricultural/residential zones. If a moratorium is put in place, it should affect only those zoning actions that have to do with new development in the agricultural/residential zone.

Also, no moratorium should last longer than 60 days. To make anybody requesting zoning action sit on hold until the first of next year is unfairly burdensome.

At least one commissioner in support of a moratorium said that the measure might encourage the commission and the public to work quickly to approve the revised zoning regulations. While we believe it is best for the revisions to be completed as soon as possible, it is not prudent to use this kind of heavy-handed approach to move the process forward.